In January 2011, the New York City Department of Education implemented a pilot program to distribute birth-control information and supplies in 13 schools across the city. The program is part of a wider effort to lower the rate of teen pregnancy, as some 7,000 NY high-school students become pregnant by age 17 each year. (And, of course, it s likely that the actual number is higher, as some pregnancies never come to official attention).
The high schools chosen for the program were selected based on the shortage of available health services nearby. These schools also serve a student population known to have a higher risk of pregnancy for a variety of reasons.
For the program called CATCH (Connecting Adolescents To Comprehensive Health) school nurses as well as doctors from the NYC Health Department are on-site to prescribe contraceptives, including the Plan B emergency contraceptive (the morning-after pill), to all students as young as 14. While the program does not require active parental consent, parents can opt out of all or some of the reproductive services but only one to two percent of parents have thus far chosen to do so. Through CATCH, students will also have access to free pregnancy tests and condoms.
In one of his latest columns for for the Examiner.com, ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross discusses the importance of preventing unplanned pregnancies. The sad fact is that the United States leads the world in...unintended pregnancies, he writes. This is especially problematic among our teenage girls, whose lives and plans are so often derailed by such an occurrence. Carrying a pregnancy to term and having a baby as an unwed teen often derails young lives, and of course the alternative termination of pregnancy is also tragic when 15- and 16-year olds have to make such a gut-wrenching decision.
While it is too early to tell if the program is effective in preventing teenage pregnancies, we are optimistic that such measures may help to address the problem.